Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink tank cartridge which stores ink to be supplied to a recording head and is mountable to and demountable from a recording apparatus, and to an ink filling device for filling an ink to the tank. More particularly, the present invention relates to an ink tank cartridge which has a plug member having a fine opening and being detachable from the air hole of the ink tank cartridge to facilitate the ink filling operation, and also relates to an ink filling device which has an fitting member to fit the air hole of the ink tank cartridge.
In the field of application of ink-jet recording, the ink cartridges are increasingly used which have a recording head and an ink tank exchangeable separately or integrally in view of more reliable ink feeding, easier handling of the recording head and the ink tank, and higher maintainability thereof. The ink cartridge is generally constituted to be mountable to and demountable to a carriage scanning a recording area.
The exchangeable ink tank cartridge or the cartridge which is constructed integrally with a recording head and an ink tank is exchanged with a new one when the ink therein has been exhausted. The old cartridge is usually thrown away as waste. With the increased interest on the global environment, reuse of the empty cartridge by refilling of ink thereto is attracting attention.
Conventional ink tanks are not constructed to be refilled. Therefore, an ink refill kit is proposed which drills a hole on the ink tank wall at a prescribed position, and refills ink through the drilled hole by a thin tube like a syringe needle. The refilling of ink by inserting a thin tube into a hole should be carefully conducted so as to inject the ink at a rate lower than the ink penetration rate into the ink-absorbing material in the ink tank to avoid overflow of the ink from the hole. When a hole is drilled, formed shavings may enter the interior of the ink tank, which may adversely affect the feed of the refilled ink. The drilled hole has to be sealed after the ink refilling to prevent leakage of the ink.
The ink refill kit after ink refilling would cause environmental pollution, if it is thrown away. This problem can be solved by constructing the ink refill kit from a biodegradable plastics which is decomposable in the natural environment with lapse of time. Biodegradable plastic materials, however, are generally not completely resistant to ink. The biodegradable material which is suitable as a constructing material of the ink refill kit, if it could be selected, would be extremely expensive to raise the cost of the refill kit.
The present invention has been made after comprehensive studies to solve the above problems.